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Page 145
news of the reavers' camp. There was also the chance that one of the other groups had come to grips with a band of the thieves. They might need to summon other portions of the dispersed troops to their aid, or they might have taken prisoners who should be questioned. Owain would have to go. He was the only shadow of authority and, besides, the only one who could make head or tail of what the Welsh would say.
As long as the troop rode east, the path of those who headed for Roselynde and those headed for the farm lay together. Ian spent that time giving Owain instructions. At the parting of the ways, he sent ten men back with the squire. When he finally had time to turn his attention to Alinor, she diverted him from the topic she feared with a mention of the wounded man-at-arms. Ian dispatched two men to search for him. Then Alinor made an ingenuous remark as to how fortunate her hunstsmen were abroad in force. That led to mention of the wedding feast and thence to the subject of the wedding. Alinor was delighted at how willing Ian was to discuss that event. She could have wished that his interest was more personal and less politicalhe concentrated mainly upon the men he wished to have invitedbut she reminded herself that it was ungrateful to look a gift horse in the mouth.
In fact, it was not until Ian was getting ready to step into the tub to wash the blood from himself that he asked the question she feared. First he said something about killing the lice with which he had become infested and then, as Alinor turned to tell a maid to fetch the stavesacre salve, he said softly, "Stay, Alinor."
Alinor instructed the maid and came back, glad that the flaring light of the torches would conceal the color that had risen to her cheeks. The last thing Ian said, before he mentioned the lice, had been a clarification of a final detail in the marriage contract. Alinor thought his mind had returned to that; perhaps he would at last say something that was not purely business. Could the

 
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